James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join my colleague the member for Bradfield in expressing support for the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Information Disclosure, National Interest and Other Measures) Bill 2022, but I'll put on the record a few points about caution in this area.

To begin with I'll mention, very proudly, that Fivecast, a business from my electorate, was successful at the Australian Export Awards held here in Parliament House last Thursday night. That business does a lot of work with law enforcement agencies as far as receiving data and using publicly accessible sources to help and support law enforcement agencies in a variety of things that they do. One really heartening example of things they are a part of is the recent search for the little girl in Western Australia who was kidnapped and, thankfully, found safely some days later. They were involved in supporting Western Australian police by providing them with intelligence services that led to the location of that little girl. One of the things that was helpful was mobile phone data and information.

We certainly agree that there's a need to change the law to give better, clearer and cleaner access to data that can help save lives. Obviously, there's complete unity in this chamber on that objective. My brief word of caution is that, every time we have these bills to modernise laws regarding new and emerging technology that can be used to help law enforcement do their job, we should be wary that there's the right justification for providing those powers, and that they stop at the point that is necessary and don't ever creep further.

We are talking about personal data and information about people which, as we all know, is extremely topical in this country right now. There is a lot of wariness about people's data falling into the wrong hands and then being used against people. Regrettably, right now we're seeing blackmail and extortion of people and companies. Customer information of a personal nature is taken from companies, and these companies are being threatened with significant consequences. The victims are not the companies; the victims are the people whose data is being released publicly with the object of embarrassing them. We've seen that with the Medicare and Optus matters, and unfortunately there is a significant risk of it continuing to happen into the future.

When we're adjusting the law, as we are in this case, to give smoother, cleaner and more comprehensive access to data on people that in the past has been protected, we want to do that for the right reasons. The reasons for these amendments are the right reasons, but we as a parliament always need to be vigilant and wary, when the executive—the government—the department and others put forward these proposals, that the changes, the new powers that are being asked for, meet the requirements we expect. I am wary about making sure that into the future we are always very careful about law changes that are going to put more information about people into the public realm.

Those concerns have been outlined by the Manager of Opposition Business. He has also made it very clear that the previous government was in support of this legislation. For that reason, we are very comfortable with supporting this amendment bill through the chamber. I clarify that we will always be very wary about requests to make it easier for information on the citizens of our country to be kept and passed on, but in this case the reasons for the change are valid and meritorious. We certainly hope that these changes will make it easier for our agencies to save lives. If we do nothing more than that in this place today, it will have been a good day's work at the office. I commend the bill to the House.

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